Procrastination

Well, so much for my New Year’s resolution to be more productive. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m traveling in a country with spectacular natural scenery and lots of interesting things to do?

Scientists often do sabbaticals and fieldwork in locations far from home where many more (and new) distractions exist than at home. How do you manage the work you are supposed to be doing and the opportunity to experience a new and interesting place?

Such a situation is problematic for the procrastinator and even for people like me who rarely put off important tasks:  “I’ll just take a quick hike to this overlook–shouldn’t take more than an hour round-trip–then I’ll feel invigorated enough to finish formatting that paper.” Hours later, after reaching the summit, which was considerably more challenging than it looked on the map, I’ve had to stop and rest and have something to eat before starting back down. By the time I get back, it’s time to start dinner. By 9 pm, I’ve finished cleaning up the kitchen but can’t keep my eyes open. Well, tomorrow is soon enough to tackle that formatting….”

At home, the above scenario would never happen to me. I’m good at ignoring distractions and prioritizing tasks. However, when I am traveling and encountering unique and never-before-seen places, sights that I may never see again in my lifetime, the decision to postpone working on a paper that only a handful of people will likely read becomes more reasonable. If you have only one or two days in a particular location before moving on and there are interesting things to see and do there, then you have to make a choice.

In the long-run, it makes more sense to take the time for new experiences….as long as you don’t avoid work altogether or miss important deadlines. 

Actually, I’ve been quite good at combining travel with work. Check and answer email and write or analyze data for a few hours in the morning. In the afternoon, go for a drive to check out an interesting local attraction. Come back and do some more work and answer any new emails.

Although my current procrastination is situation-specific, many people have a more generalized procrastination problem. That is, they routinely put off important tasks and never meet deadlines because they find a multitude of other, minor tasks (without deadlines) to do instead.

Some people are what are known as “productive procrastinators”, a term coined by Piers Steel, a professor who has published a book called, “The Procrastination Equation”. Some of the techniques he says he uses to productively procrastinate sound very familiar. For example, when I have multiple projects, I can procrastinate on one by working on another. Or when writing, I might put off penning the introduction by writing the methods or formatting the literature cited. When I’m working on a paper and find myself pondering whether it’s time to clean my desk, I will switch to another part of the paper, e.g., prepare a figure or table, and then go back later to the narrative after the impulse to procrastinate passes. Psychologically, this works because we naturally will work on something boring and repetitive if it allows us to avoid something even more distasteful or daunting.

Much earlier, Robert Benchley revealed his secret to accomplishing a lot of work through productive procrastination: “anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.” I’ve used this principle for years. I might spend a few hours during the workday cleaning up my desktop, perusing a scientific catalogue, or just thinking about new project, but in the evening or on the weekend will write or analyze data or proofread a manuscript. In other words, I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing during normal work hours but doing them instead when I’m off the clock. This strategy is a psychological “trick” that allows you to work on whatever you feel like tackling at a particular time but which leads to an overall net production.

Let me hasten to add that the total time I spend actually working on stuff I’m supposed to be working on (research, data analysis, writing) has traditionally exceeded 40 hours per week. And over my career, I’ve been reasonably productive, publishing more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. If you are goofing off most of the time, surfing the internet, reading blogs like this one, and only spending a fraction of the day actually producing something substantive, then you are going to have a problem. 

If you want to find out where you rank relative to others, you can take the procrastination test. 

Do Not Pass Go....

In my government agency, travel to scientific conferences must be justified and permission obtained from the powers-that-be. Domestic conferences require "only" that the individual traveler show justification, e.g., symposium invitation, plans to give a paper, etc. and then get approval from one’s immediate supervisor. For international conferences, you must get your name on an “International Conference list” well in advance for each quarter of the year. In addition, you must initiate your travel authorization 45 days in advance of travel to a foreign location. You must fill out paperwork documenting all sources of funds for the travel, estimates of costs, etc. Then, there are all the various restrictions covering air and other travel to navigate (Federal employees may only use American carriers unless they do not fly to your destination).  Travel by Federal employees to a foreign location also requires “country clearance”, which must be obtained from the U.S. Embassy in each country. Failure to take these steps precisely can lead to disapproval of your travel.

When more than five people from an agency plan to attend an international conference, special permission must be obtained from the Dept. of State. The people who make those decisions are constantly questioning the need for scientists to be attending scientific conferences. Often, deep suspicion is expressed as to the real motives behind several scientists from a single agency needing to attend a major international conference.  There are often more than five scientists from my branch who might attend the same conference, not to mention those across the entire agency.  The real reason for such scrutiny is concern about how the expense would be justified to the public if there were ever any questions about use of government funds. The more people from an agency attending a conference, the greater the total expenditure. I suppose the magic number of five relates to some threshold travel cost per conference that is likely to trigger public outrage.

Conference travel has been particularly targeted because, I suppose, of the possibility for abuse and also because conference venues tend to be in places like Las Vegas or New Orleans as opposed to Cleveland or Duluth (no offense to those cities). Agencies are warned to “exercise strict fiscal responsibility when choosing a site to conduct a conference, especially if the site might be considered extravagant in the public eye.” Note the term “conduct”--as if the traveler has any say in the selection of the conference venue. I suppose we could restrict our conference travel to those locations that no one would ever want to go—but conference organizers aren’t going to select such places and instead pick sites with appropriate conference facilities, are located in a large city with an international airport, and that will attract the most attendees. Large science societies accept proposals from various countries and cities wanting to host the next international conference—and then select the best one.

Permission to travel (to a foreign location) is often not given until just a few days prior to travel. Therefore, one must purchase a refundable ticket, pay registration and abstract fees (often not refundable), make hotel reservations (sometimes not refundable) in anticipation of being allowed to travel, but without any idea of when or whether that permission will come. So there you are, just hours before departure wondering if you are going or not. I’ve heard of colleagues who were sitting at the airport when their travel approval came through. If permission is denied for the group or for you individually, then you must cancel all plans and stay home. This, of course, wreaks havoc with conference schedules to have speakers drop out at the last minute. Fortunately, this has not happened to me, although there have been some close calls.

Obviously, scientists must participate in scientific conferences. It’s part of what we do as scientists—mingle with other scientists to present our work, to find out what our competitors are up to, and to make contacts that will prove useful in the future. Many of us have grant funds that include anticipated costs for conference travel as well as for fieldwork and other job-related travel—yet we must still justify such expenses.

Scientists in academia have not yet been subjected to this level of accountability, but I won’t be surprised if this changes in the future.

Lounging on the Beach

Do you find it annoying when other people assume that when you are away from your office or lab that you are not working? You may be working at home, trying to finish that proposal by the deadline and can’t afford the interruptions at the office. You may be a telecommuter and spend part or all of your time at a home office. Your job may require extensive travel—to do fieldwork or meet with colleagues/clients, for example. Most scientists travel to attend conferences a couple of times (or more) per year. Even when your off-site activities are clearly required to meet your job responsibilities and for career development, does there still seem to be a suspicion that you are getting away with something?

Somehow, official travel has become an activity that is viewed by outsiders as a “perk”. Maybe it has something to do with reimbursement for expenses (and the suspicion that you are getting a free vacation). Maybe it’s just the fact that you are allowed to escape the office drudgery periodically while others are not. You’ve probably read those newspaper articles that list travel expenditures of government officials who have gone on “junkets” somewhere--usually a resort setting; such revelations are often followed by expressions of outrage by the public as to how their taxes are being wasted. Maybe some of these trips are boondoggles, but most are probably not. The average person likely does not understand that conferences and workshops are often held in resorts or resort settings, and that the traveler typically does not have anything to do with the choice of venue.  Newspaper reports can sound quite damning: "'Government Official X' made 8 trips in 2009 at a total cost to the taxpayer of $15,000."  That's less than $2,000 per trip--very reasonable.  However, the article often questions the need for these trips (as if the employee had a choice) and implies that the cost is not warranted.

Travel by scientists (e.g., to conferences) is sometimes questioned by administrators, but at least we (and our expense reports) are not held up to public scrutiny (yet).  More about this in the next post...

Travel becomes even more suspect (in others' minds) when it involves a destination known for recreational opportunities such as swimming, diving, fishing, skiing, etc. As an example, I do a lot of fieldwork in coastal areas that contain a variety of habitats extending from the ocean to uplands: beach, dune, swale, and wetland (the latter being my research focus).  Some of these locations one might want to visit on vacation. Unfortunately, I’m not on vacation, nor do I have time to relax and also get my work done.  And even if I did have time to relax, lying on the beach is not my idea of fun.

My research sites are characterized by lots of mud (into which you might sink up to your thighs), vegetation so thick that it takes fifteen minutes to traverse a few feet, extreme heat and humidity in summer and cold and rain in winter, sometimes dangerous animals (crocodiles), and of course, a myriad of biting insects that would drive a normal person quite crazy. The accommodations in some field locations are quite rustic--no running water; intermittent electricity (if any) and definitely no air conditioning, TV, or internet; an outhouse on the end of a pier (unless it’s been washed away by the latest hurricane and you are reduced to using a bucket)....definitely not Shangri-La. I happen to love the rugged simplicity, but most people would be very unhappy campers when faced with such a setting for weeks on end.

But people only hear that you are off to ‘Fabulous Location’ and immediately jump to the wrong conclusion. Even co-workers who know better.

Just prior to departure for some distant shore, I invariably will have some person say to me, "I hear you are off to 'Fabulous Location'. I wish I could go places like that." Others will make more snide comments such as, "Well, aren't you lucky...getting to go to 'Fabulous Location'."  Yes, I feel lucky, but only at the opportunity to do research in an interesting ecosystem, which is my job.

One of the first, disturbing interactions I’ve ever had in this regard was when I was a graduate student and had to meet with the chair of the graduate school. Although the subject of the meeting had to do with my resident status, he asked me about my dissertation research. I naively explained that it entailed field study in a foreign tropical country. He immediately began grilling me about why I had to do my research in that particular setting and ultimately insinuated that I was not really doing research but was instead cavorting in a bikini (!!) on a beach somewhere. I was flabbergasted. The harder I tried to convey the actual conditions surrounding such field research, the more suspicious he became and the more outrageous his comments. I got out of there as fast as I could (my request regarding residency was ultimately denied).

My relatives are usually the most resistant to the idea that I might be working while away from the office. Despite numerous explanations about the nature of my work, their automatic assumption, upon hearing I'm headed for another field trip to 'Fabulous Location', is that I will be lying on a beach somewhere with a cocktail in my hand. When I protest, they grin and say, "Yeah, right. You must think I'm stupid or something."

I've finally given up trying to explain and respond to such remarks with, "Well, it's hard work, but someone has to do it."

Time is Relative

Another thing I like about traveling is how it seems to alter my sense of time.  You know the feeling.  You go on a week's trip, and after only a couple of days it feels as if you've lived two lifetimes.  You can often be heard to exclaim, "Wow, it feels as if I've been away forever!"

In the meantime, the folks back home have experienced the same passage of time as if it occurred in the blink of an eye.  They will often remark upon hearing that you've just returned from a long trip, "Were you away? I didn't notice."

This strange alteration of sense of time is reminiscent of our changing perception of it throughout our lifetimes.  Remember when summer vacation seemed to last a really looonnngg time?  On that first day out of school, the summer stretched out before you, and the next school year was in the very distant future.  Each day of the summer passed leisurely--almost at a snail's pace.  From the first moment your feet hit the floor until your head flopped exhausted onto your pillow in the evening, your days seemed full and packed with activity.  As we reach early adulthood, time begins to speed up, and those summer vacations are definitely not as long as they once seemed to be.  Advance forward to middle age, and the days flash by like cars speeding past on the Autobahn.  As each year goes by, we marvel at how much shorter they seem to be.

I understand from reading about this phenomenon that most people attribute it to the fact that as we age, time units (such as a year) represent smaller and smaller fractions of our lifespan.  For a two-year old, one year is half of a lifetime.  For a 90-year old...well, you get the picture.  However, time perception researchers have other hypotheses, some relating to changes in brain chemistry as we age or to the effect of visual stimuli (marking time intervals).  I'm sure there are some interesting experiments going on in this field....

So back to the effect of travel on time perception.  I guess that the perceived slowing down of time while away from home has to do with being jostled out of your routine and exposed to new experiences.  You are in new and unknown surroundings, usually doing something different from what you would do at home, meeting new people, and probably learning a lot of new things (or at least being exposed to new information and experiences).  Novelty is also a feature of early life when we are constantly learning new things.  One wonders, then, if it is the new experiences that actually influence our sense of time, rather than the fraction of our lifespan each time unit represents?  Perhaps new experiences alter our brain chemistry and a side effect is altered time perception? 

In any case, travel might be a means to slow down time.  Time may not actually be changing--just your perception of it.  But perception is reality, as they say.

It's hard to know, though, if this phenomenon would persist if you travel frequently.  I imagine not, since the routine of travel would come to be as monotonous as the routine of daily life stuck in one location.  I was thinking about this while watching the recent movie, "Up in the Air", starring George Clooney as a guy who travels 320 days a year firing people for corporate executives too wimpy to do it themselves.  He has the airport, hotel, and restaurant routines down pat.  He also gives motivational talks--or rather the same talk, called "Unpacking Your Backpack", over and over.  His goal is to reach 10 million frequent flyer miles.  This is not the type of travel that slows time.

By the same reasoning, one should be able to slow time down by simply altering daily activities to include something new and different.  Unfortunately, when we need this time dilatation the most (old age) is when we have the least energy and inclination to do new things.  We tend to develop and cling to routines as we age.  They seem familiar, safe, and, most of all, require little brain-power to accomplish (an important consideration for those of us over a certain age).  Retired people have the most flexibility to incorporate new activities or experiences because they are freed from the routine of a regular job that involves repetitive tasks carried out at specific times. But all retirees seem to do is play golf!

There must be an intermediate mix of home and travel (or new activities) that yields an optimum (i.e., slowed down) time perception.  I'm not sure what this ratio is, but will let you know when I figure it out.

All Washed Up

One of the things I like about traveling is leaving behind personal paraphernalia (clothes and various other possessions) and all the various problems, deadlines, appointments, etc. They are still there, but I seem to be able to stuff them into a portion of my brain where they stay submerged until I head home again. Then they start popping back into my consciousness like rising bubbles—usually not until the flight home, if I’m lucky. In the meantime, however, I enjoy brief (if delusional) freedom from the daily grind.

I tend to travel light these days, taking only a few changes of clothes and washing things out as necessary. Husband ALWAYS takes advantage of the hotel laundry service—sometimes quite expensive. We once got a bill for about $70 (he failed to check the prices first).

I prefer to do my own. This is especially true when traveling in places where the “laundry service” is a person scrubbing your laundry by hand in a basin. I just can’t imagine making someone else wash out my underwear; whereas Husband says, “What’s so terrible about that?”

On our last trip to a remote region, I was amused to see that the hotel refused to wash people’s underwear (there was a prominent sign to that effect in our bathroom). Husband apparently didn’t see it and put all of his dirty clothes, underwear included, in the provided bag. The staff, apparently fully aware of the male aversion to washing underwear, sorted through the laundry bag before leaving our room. They left my husband’s skivvies in our sink with the provided container of wash powder resting jauntily on top of them.

I immediately started snickering upon spotting this, clearly envisioning the women who cleaned our room shaking their heads and saying, “Another spoiled man. We’ll show him.”

When my husband came in to see what was so funny, he couldn’t believe his eyes and glanced at me with a horrified, yet hopeful, look. My response was, “Don’t even think about it.”

I find this male aversion to doing hand laundry pretty widespread. At a field station I frequent, there is a rustic laundry area set up outside next to the cistern with a hose, large shallow washbasin, an authentic washboard, and stiff-bristled brush (for those hard-to-remove stains). You can pay the field station cook to do your laundry, but in my 25 years of fieldwork there I’ve never availed myself of this service. In contrast, most of the male scientists have her do their laundry.

There are a few who solve the problem by simply not doing any wash and just wear the same clothes over and over (until they get home and their wives do it for them).

Sometimes, though, if a male scientist (on their first trip) happens to ask me about the laundry, I’ll point them in the direction of the washbasin and even give them a lesson in the proper use of the washboard. Then I retire to the shade to be entertained by their tentative poking, dipping, and splashing. I’ve even gotten a few good photos that are useful at later seminars.

All too soon, though, the fun ends when the station manager walks past and says, “Hey, man. What the heck are you thinkin’? The cook’ll do your skivvies for ya!”

By the way, the term “skivvies” is nautical slang for “underwear”--of unknown origin, but was once London slang for “female domestic servant”. Hmmmm….

I have to admit, though, that I did once meet an aberrant male scientist who falsified my Male Aversion to Laundry Hypothesis. A plant biochemist I encountered years ago, who was staying at the same field station, had me beaten in both the laundry and the streamlined travel categories. He had brought for a three-week trip only a briefcase containing his critical laboratory chemicals and one change of clothes. He had two polo shirts (a red one and a green one) and two pairs each of slacks, socks, and underwear. Every evening he would wash out the set he had worn that day. I would pass his cabin each morning, and there on the clothesline would be his daily wash waving in the breeze.

I was so impressed at how diligently he performed this ritual, that I cooked him an old-fashioned Southern meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and cornbread (and I don’t fry chicken for just anyone). When he admitted he could barely boil water, I realized that he was practically starving to death (we were 40 km from the nearest restaurant and without transportation).

I’m not sure if he was an outlier (in the male population) or if his behavior was somehow associated with the field of biochemistry. My sample size is just too small to say.

Desynchronosis

….is otherwise known as jet lag. I just completed a long, international trip and am suffering from this annoying affliction, which is usually not a big problem for me. But for some reason, this trip really threw me for a loop.

As a frequent traveler, I’ve searched in vain for a way to fool my internal clock into thinking that I’ve not crossed several time zones and that instead of yesterday at 10 pm it’s really today at 8 am. I’ve tried diet, meditation, and drugs with varying success.

On the internet, you can find various remedies, including mysterious homeopathic tablets. Yeah, right. Do they really think that I’m going to order some pills with unknown ingredients and that have not been approved by the FDA from a website called Pharmaceuticals R Us? On second thought, if they prevent jet lag, I might be tempted--even if they later cause cancer of the big toe (I can do without one or both).

These herbal supplements remind me of a time years ago when I was flying on China Airlines in what was clearly an ancient jet they had purchased from the Soviet Union (the message on the tray table about fastening your seatbelts was written in Russian). Instead of peanuts, the flight attendants passed out pills. I had seen a lot of things on flights, but this unusual handout startled even me.

I accepted the package of pills out of sheer curiosity. And who knows? They might even work for jet lag. The pills were separately enclosed in see-through plastic tabs glued to a cardboard backing. On the back was writing in both Chinese and English. Presumably, both described the same thing, but I had no way of knowing.

I was quite amazed to read the list of ailments that these little pills could cure:

Gastrointestinal distress

Worms

Female problems (all of them or just gynecological, I wondered?)

Migraine

Schizophrenia

Insomnia

Allergies

Cold sores

Bad breath

Cirrhosis of liver

Gas (I guess this wasn’t considered to be distressful enough to include in #1)

Consumption (that’s tuberculosis, in case you didn’t know)

and

Gunshot wound (Were you supposed to ingest the pill or sprinkle the ingredients in the wound? It didn’t say.)

I had suffered from several of these ailments at one time or another in my life (except for the gunshot wound and a couple of others), so I carefully scrutinized the gelatin capsules filled with an off-white powder and random dark specks.

My traveling companion was eyeing me suspiciously by then and finally said, “You’re not actually thinking about taking one of those, are you?”

I sheepishly said, “No. I just didn’t want to be impolite by not accepting them.”

In any case, jet lag was not listed.

Getting into the sun upon arrival, and never, ever going to sleep until the new bedtime rolls around are helpful in speeding the time adjustment. I’ve tried melatonin, but the jury’s still out on that one (and I’m not sure where the FDA stands on this). Diet and meditation don’t really work (for jet lag) in my experience, but they won’t hurt you, either.

There are drugs that do help with jet lag, and these are readily available from your local drug dealer—aka, your primary care physician. I’m talking about sleeping pills—Ambien, Lunesta, Siesta (OK. The last one I made up, but would be a good name, I think). These little gems also help you deal with the egregious conditions in economy class.

In the old days, airlines were not so concerned with filling up international flights, and you could often have an entire row to yourself to stretch out and sleep for the entire fifteen-hour flight. You could even get away with sleeping on the floor. Now, it’s rare to see a single empty seat, and everyone is crammed so tight that even with your seatbelt unfastened, severe air turbulence wouldn’t dislodge you.

Occasionally, I’m lucky enough to have an empty seat or two between me and the next person. However, the last time that happened, the elderly woman sitting in my row (who did not speak English and did not appear to be aware of airplane etiquette) spent the entire flight with her feet in my lap. I tried to indicate to her through pantomime that this arrangement was not mutually beneficial, but she just grinned and nodded at me enthusiastically. We eventually reached a sort of compromise. I would push her feet away, and she would gradually sneak them back onto my lap when I dozed.

This was the same flight that sat on the tarmac for seven hours prior to a sixteen hour flight to Tokyo or Shanghai (I forget which). I knew we were in trouble when the original flight crew disappeared five hours into this hiatus. Apparently, we exceeded their allowed flight time, and the airline had to send for a replacement crew. They weren’t concerned about exceeding the passengers’ endurance, apparently. You may have heard about these infamous flights, which made the major news shows and eventually led to rules prohibiting airlines from keeping passengers hostage. Someone finally had pity on us and brought on board a bunch of Burger King Whoppers, which they literally threw at us like they were feeding a pack of wild animals (which I guess we were by then).  I don’t know what the people who had pre-ordered special meals got. I eventually got to my destination, but you can imagine the condition I was in.

Anyway, it is in such circumstances where being unconscious is a plus. This is where a good sleeping pill comes in. However, if you’ve never taken one before, beware. Be sure you are sitting down (in your assigned seat, not the toilet), have emptied your bladder, and put away all breakable objects. The first time I took one was on a flight to New Zealand with about 100 thirteen-year-old exchange students (not mine). I remember pushing my seat back and dropping my napkin onto my dinner tray about five minutes after downing the pill. The next thing I knew we were landing twelve hours later in Auckland; my dinner tray had not only been removed at some point, but according to the person next to me, I had been served a mid-flight snack and breakfast. I was afraid to ask if I ate it.

Needless to say, these sleeping pills are great. You are blissfully unaware of all the indignities being heaped upon you in economy class. You don’t care if the entire row puts their feet in your lap. With my first sleeping pill experience, they could have done brain surgery on me and I wouldn’t have known it.

Of course, the best way to reduce jet lag and various indignities is to fly business or first class. Unfortunately, the upgrades we used to score occasionally have gone the way of the Dodo. You now need about a million frequent flyer miles even to get on the upgrade list.

I’ll put in a plug here for Air New Zealand, which has really comfy economy seats with a lot more legroom than your usual carrier; individual, sizable TV screens and huge choice of entertainment; and a number of useful webbed pouches in the adjacent seatback for water bottles, books, laptop, etc. Overhead compartments are actually built to accommodate roller bags. No seat is more than one seat away from an aisle. All in all, very well designed—for the passenger’s comfort.

Unfortunately, my most recent flight on ANZ was only four hours long and then it was back to the sardine can on another airline for a fifteen hour flight. I was spoiled. As I sat in coach, I kept thinking about that Seinfeld episode in which Elaine tries to sneak into first class. Just as she settles back into her seat and sighs, the first class flight attendant comes over frowning---and it’s back to economy. In the meantime, she’s missed the meal service in both sections (No soup for YOU!).

Hmmm. Maybe they wouldn’t notice me in business class? What’s the worst they could they do, kick me out over the Indian Ocean?

Oh, well. I came to my senses, downed my Ambien CR, and aimed my feet at my neighbor’s lap.

So, I’m still searching for the perfect jet lag remedy. If you’ve got one, I’d like to hear about it (and no, an alcoholic hangover on top of jet lag is not one I’m interested in).

I’ll also accept donations so that I can buy a first-class ticket on my next flight.

Off the Grid

I've been doing fieldwork in a remote location for the past two weeks and have been out of internet reach. It's been blissful--not being able to compulsively check email every two minutes. At first, it's disturbing not knowing what's going on, what people are asking you about (or for), and "important" notifications. Gradually, though, you forget all about it and focus on other things--your real work, what's for dinner, whether it's going to rain today and interfere with fieldwork, etc. I've had no idea what's happening in the world. Has the US initiated another war? Any major terrorist attacks? What's Paris Hilton up to?

I'm on my way home and am now at a hotel with WiFi. I've checked my email and no major problems, thank goodness. I did have one nice surprise. I've been selected by my agency for a Diversity Award--for my work with Women in Wetlands.